The DrDoctor Blog

Insight and thoughts from the DrDoctor team

The NHS’s Epidemic: A Cure – Digitalisation

March 9, 2018

The Epidemic The definition of an epidemic is a widespread occurrence of an infectious disease in a community at a particular time. It’s not too great a leap to suggest that the NHS is experiencing an epidemic of its own; a financial one. Every few weeks, we see newspapers dominated…

Time with Hamish Laing

March 8, 2018

We sat down with Hamish Laing, Medical Director, and Chief Information Officer, ABM University Health Board, to discuss all things digital and the NHS. We wanted to understand where Hamish has come from through his journey in the NHS, what inspires him and what he hopes to see in the…

How not to Screw up GDPR

February 26, 2018

GDPR at DrDoctor Everyone is talking about GDPR, it may not be the most exciting topic, but it will be making a big impact on users. How will we go about not screwing it up? Have a read below to see what we’ve done to prep for May 25th 2018.…

Driving Change Through Partnerships in Healthcare

February 15, 2018

Back when I studied economics at school, I was introduced to the concept of Ceteris Paribus – all other things being equal – and the term stuck with me, not least because phrases in Latin make you sound smart. It is used when examining, building and testing economic theories and models to…

What DrDoctor Means to Patients – Amanda’s Story

February 12, 2018

DrDoctor was a godsend for me, it helped me to take control over my care at a really difficult time in my life. I work for myself and working while in treatment meant I not only had to keep track of my own appointments, but my work life too. I…

3 Key Insights For Working with the NHS

February 1, 2018

Healthcare, like all other industries, thrives on innovation. Paradoxically, the complexity of the NHS means that innovation often falls by the wayside to more pressing and immediate challenges. In an organisation as financially handicapped as the NHS, which concurrently spends over £20 billion on goods and services annually, the margin…

Making Big Changes with Small Steps – Culture and Innovation in the NHS

January 17, 2018

Our founder Tom spoke to tech podcast “Venturi’s Voice” about how DrDoctor is bringing about a cultural change in the NHS and how this paves the way for a technological shift in the organisation. They also discuss the current state of healthtech and Tom’s journey founding DrDoctor. Below is a short extract from the…

Why Global Digital Exemplars are Steering the Ship of the NHS

January 11, 2018

The NHS has come a long way from where it began, and as our world evolves and becomes ‘smarter’, our healthcare system needs to keep up to ensure patients and NHS workers are given the support they need. Over the past few years, headlines have stated how the NHS…

Patient Empowerment: Co-creating a Smarter Healthcare System

December 18, 2017

The NHS provides a public service that is funded through taxpayer’s money. It seems only natural, therefore that such a service is kept accountable and transparent to the public. Yet far too often the public is regarded as part of the problem instead of part of the solution. This situation…

The Role of Patients in Healthcare Innovation

December 5, 2017

A good story could be one of the biggest attributes to a product’s success. The narrative of any tale plays a huge function in how the story will be received by the public or its target audience. In short, the majority of my work has come from defining the narrative…

Automation Helps, But Let’s Not Forget the Philosophy

November 9, 2017

The most valuable commodity we have as humankind is time. It cannot be created, nor destroyed, only found, or wasted. It is the greatest equaliser we have – regardless of wealth or status, ethnicity or geography, we all have the same 24 hours each day – a finite amount that…

Why the NHS Finds Technology So Hard

October 26, 2017

Getting tech ‘right’ is hard, there is no doubt about it. Technology is advancing so rapidly, companies of all sizes and disciplines struggle to pinpoint which innovation to back. With cost-effectiveness, risk factors, security, implementation times, changes in procedure and training, all key factors in decision making, it is no…

Learnings from NHS Innovation Expo 2017

September 18, 2017

They say the mark of a good conference is that it takes you a week to get back on track after following up with all the enquiries and new connections you make. That and coming home with a bag full of great merchandise. The NHS Innovation Expo was nothing short…

Finding Success Through Iterative Technology

September 7, 2017

Technology is plagued with buzzwords like ‘agile’, ‘gamification’ and ‘bespoke’, but none has been more damaging than ‘disruptive’. Disruptive has never been a synonym for better, or ground-breaking, rather the underlying principle is to radically transform by destabilising the current ‘way things are done’. This simply doesn’t work in many…

DrDoctor Academy: “Elevating our thinking so together we can design the next generation of healthcare systems.”

July 21, 2017

Last Thursday we had the pleasure of welcoming 30 people to the DrDoctor HQ to launch the new arm of DrDoctor – The Academy. Thank you to everyone who participated – we feel more enthused than ever that together we can design healthcare systems to work for the next generation.…

Tweaking our Nancy unit tests to run in 5 minutes instead of 40

June 12, 2017

TL;DR version: We value fast, automated tests Our suite has grown to over 4300 tests Our suite already took about 20 minutes to run, on average, and recently adding only a handful of tests increased total time to over 40 minutes Turns out the useful Browser testing component from the…

Meet Jane…

Update on our tech stack

January 11, 2017

We’ve previously listed our DrDoctor tech stack on this blog. But that was a while back. We’ve recently shared our tech stack over at stackshare.io listing a few more tools and technologies that we have used since the original blog post. Hope you find it useful!

Patient led care – Is it the answer for healthcare?

December 15, 2016

Uncertainty plagues us all at the moment, but one thing is for sure, a focus on patient engagement and quality of care is the answer to the surmounting financial pressures on the NHS. Patient led care and ownership over their health is the future. Whilst, we of course need to…

Acronyms kill clarity

December 9, 2016

Jargon, slang, acronyms, buzzwords, lingo, whatever you want to call it, it’s rampant in the NHS (that’s the National Health Service) in case you were wondering)! Okay, so the NHS is a commonly adopted and a generally understood acronym but it’s the perfect lead in to my open letter to…